News Roundup: On Upcoming Raid Nerfs, BlizzCon Tickets, New Support Site

Just a few new Blizzard posts today after earlier's major update to the patch notes, including a clarification on the decision behind the upcoming raid dungeon content nerfs. In addition, Blizzard reminds us of the upcoming (second) sale of BlizzCon tickets, available this Thursday. They've also launched a brand new support site, which allows users to submit tickets via a web interface instead of the clunky in-game method! Sounds awesome to me. :)

On 4.2 Raid Content Nerfs

I'm sure you guys noticed the massive list of raid nerfs coming in 4.2, intended to offer players easier access to content that they may not have gotten to experience. Blizzard has certainly learned from their past mistakes in making and then keeping content inaccessible and now wishes to keep content challenging while it's new and then as new content becomes available, gradually move previous content to a PUGable level. Is this a good thing? What do you guys think?

Bashiok

Plenty of people like the challenge, but not everyone has the ability or maybe even desire to be in a guild capable of tackling it right from the get-go.

It's always been our intent to offer new raid tiers in Cataclysm that are difficult to provide challenge to the raiding guilds, and then gradually allow older content to self-nerf as people gear up through VP, and then eventual literal nerfs to the content. That's something we've been communicating for some time.

Burning Crusade swung the pendulum one way, and Wrath of the Lich King swung it back too far the other. We're attempting to find that middle ground where there's still something brutally difficult for the cutting edge, but content gradually comes down until it's extremely accessible (ie PUGable) either simply through gear proliferation, or literal content difficulty nerfs.

There's always going to be two sides of the fence, some people want things more accessible for them and that's cool, we want it to be too, and some people think it should be difficult and always be that way because that's the way they had to do it. The fact of the matter is that as an MMO the end-game bar is constantly being raised, and progression content is in general not a place where we're going to purposefully gate prestige through difficulty. There are some exceptions of course, hard modes and unlockable bosses are purposefully there to be more difficult challenges, but as a whole our intent is to create a constantly moving ramp upward for Normal difficulty raids. That has to mean that the Normal raid content that was the hardest will one day be the easiest.

You will very likely see this same happen for Firelands when the raid tier above it is released.

Battleground Multi-Queuing Hotfixed

Bashiok

We recently implemented a hotfix that removes the ability for players to retain a second Battleground queue when one pops. Previously, players were able to queue for two Battlegrounds, have one queue pop and retain their second queue while they decided if they wanted to join the one that was ready. This is no longer the case. When a Battleground queue pops you will automatically be removed from the other active queue. To queue for a different Battleground it will be necessary to queue again.

Second Batch of BlizzCon Tickets on Sale Thursday (5/26)

Blizzard Entertainment

The second batch of BlizzCon tickets will be going on sale Thursday at 04:00 CEST - keep your eye on the ticket sales page at that time for the chance to get yours. If you are unable to purchase tickets, a limited number of tickets to an exclusive pre-BlizzCon dinner to benefit Children's Hospital of Orange County will go on sale Saturday, 28 May at 19:00 (BlizzCon admission included). For those unable to attend the show, in-depth coverage of BlizzCon will also be available through the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket, which is offered as a multi-channel Internet stream and also via DIRECTV in the United States.

BlizzCon 2011 will take place 21 and 22 October at the Anaheim Convention Center, and tickets cost $175 USD each. Tickets to the BlizzCon Benefit Dinner cost $500 USD each and include BlizzCon admission. For further information, check out the official BlizzCon site.

Blizzard Launches New Support Site

Nethaera

As a part of our ongoing efforts to provide the best customer service possible to the community, we’re launching a new customer Service website which will offer a wide array of great new features to players who need assistance with a variety of issues.

Here are some highlights of what the new site can offer:

In the new Blizzard customer service website, you will be able to access all support contacts in one convenient location including Web, in-game, and phone support. You’ll also be able to quickly and easily check on the status of your customer service request.

During your ticket submission process, we’ll try our best to identify the problem you’re experiencing and provide potential solutions along the way with relevant smart help.

Once your ticket is submitted, you can communicate with our support team easily through the Web interface much like you would within the forums. You’ll be able to reply to your own ticket, add details after a ticket has been submitted, or even add and clarify additional details should you feel the initial response from support doesn’t solve the problem. To help keep you up to date on the status of your ticket we have also added an option to receive automatic emails whenever your ticket status changes.

We hope that this new site will provide you with the tools you need to contact our support teams quickly to resolve your service issues. We invite you to check out the new site here- http://us.battle.net/support/

Comments

Comment by Lakeside98

on Tue, 24 May 2011 18:50:28 -0500

Well it was coming

Comment by shreazla

on Tue, 24 May 2011 18:53:04 -0500

As far as the nerfs to raids go, oddly enough, I think this is a good move - The people who are hardcore raiders had plenty of time to down the three main raids that are up right now, on both normal and heroic. While some would now say 'what's the point? why not just wait until patch 4.3 to run 4.2 content then, after it's nerfed', I choose to look at it another way -

Having the first tier of raid opening up allows anyone to jump BACK into the raiding game, even if they missed a few months of WoW due to real life... I, for one, haven't had much time to raid or even play WoW recently, and the idea of getting geared up enough to run raid content two tiers AHEAD of where I am now is simply daunting with the way the game is set up now... making the old raids accessible, and making it easier to gear up for Firelands is a process which I am quite happy they are intentionally implementing.

This makes old content quite appealing to casuals, and there is still cutting edge content for the hardcore player... Overall, (hopefully) this should bring back a lot of WoW's raiding player base that seemed to die out during the 'lame-duck' months of LK.

All in all... good move Blizz - Cheers!

Comment by Azrile

on Tue, 24 May 2011 19:59:15 -0500

Just to be clear, they are not nerfing heroic modes. Basically this is turning the normal modes into ´story modes´. With 359 gear purchasable with JP, and the nerfs to the normal modes, they should be fairly easy. My only complaint is that they should have just nerfed damage and buffed heallth ala LK, instead, they seem to be taking away a lot of the fight mechanisms If the goal is to ´see the content´.. you aren´t really seeing the content like this, you are seeing different boss fights.

Comment by majinash

on Tue, 24 May 2011 20:22:39 -0500

My only complaint is that they should have just nerfed damage and buffed heallth ala LK, instead, they seem to be taking away a lot of the fight mechanisms If the goal is to ´see the content´.. you aren´t really seeing the content like this, you are seeing different boss fights.

I agree with this. I've put off raiding outside of ToFW so far and I'm sad I'll be missing out on the original fights.

Comment by Aislinge

on Tue, 24 May 2011 21:09:34 -0500

As a raider currently clearing through BWD and BoT, I don't agree with people coming after 'missing' the fight. Yes, it should be nerfed to encourage people to see and experience the content but to change the fights is wrong. If I want to experience content, I want to see it as it is/was, not some story walk through. Whack a 30% buff on it ala LK and be done with it.

Comment by fewyn

on Tue, 24 May 2011 21:40:52 -0500

As a raider currently clearing through BWD and BoT, I don't agree with people coming after 'missing' the fight. Yes, it should be nerfed to encourage people to see and experience the content but to change the fights is wrong. If I want to experience content, I want to see it as it is/was, not some story walk through. Whack a 30% buff on it ala LK and be done with it.

Which is exactly what they are doing.

Comment by shao

on Wed, 25 May 2011 05:45:17 -0500

Just to be clear, they are not nerfing heroic modes. Basically this is turning the normal modes into ´story modes´. With 359 gear purchasable with JP, and the nerfs to the normal modes, they should be fairly easy. My only complaint is that they should have just nerfed damage and buffed heallth ala LK, instead, they seem to be taking away a lot of the fight mechanisms If the goal is to ´see the content´.. you aren´t really seeing the content like this, you are seeing different boss fights.

came here to post this exact same idea.

Generally i don't have an issue with a nerf. The stats on wowprogress show that not all guilds are progressing through the raiding content, i'm guessing, as much as they'd like. So yes, it's great to give these guys the option to do that. My problem is that there may still be guilds out there that have or will clear normal mode content and want to try heroic content too. For most guilds, again, judging by wowprogress the jump from normal mode to heroic mode is too steep, and most guilds just can't manage it as it stands. by nerfing the normal modes and not the heroic modes you're ensuring that guilds that have have yet to rise to the challenge of heroic modes will never rise to the challenge.

Personally, i think an opt-in nerf, ala ICC should be put in place. percentage reduction to damage taken, percentage increase to damage and healing dealt.. even add a haste buff too if you like. Just make it off by default. this way guilds can see content nerfed, then run it again sans nerf, and thusly prepare themselves for heroic modes if they so wish...

essentially, have something more than VERY VERY easy, and VERY hard difficulty settings. :)

Comment by Myndaira

on Wed, 25 May 2011 06:05:22 -0500

I don't have an issue with the nerfs at all; let folks see the content they pay for. Our guild is 11/12 (darned Nef anyways), and our goal is to have all normal content clear and a couple of heroic modes down before the next patch hits. Why do people get so bent out of shape when content gets made easier supposedly AFTER they've cleared it? I mean, who cares? Look at your achievement pane and stare at the date you cleared it if it means that much to you...

Comment by OverZealous

on Wed, 25 May 2011 06:24:44 -0500

Well, to be honest, any guild that tries will have already downed the content and will be busy tackling the new content. If the people who don't possess the time to raid progressively are one tier behind, I'm fine with that. Some people will, obviously, go OMG CATERING TO CASUALS but let's be fair, they won't have access to any top gear at any period in time since they'll be one tier behind, but they will still feel like they have accompolished something.

I approve of this move.

Comment by Porcell

on Wed, 25 May 2011 07:15:34 -0500

Well, to be honest, any guild that tries will have already downed the content and will be busy tackling the new content. If the people who don't possess the time to raid progressively are one tier behind, I'm fine with that. Some people will, obviously, go OMG CATERING TO CASUALS but let's be fair, they won't have access to any top gear at any period in time since they'll be one tier behind, but they will still feel like they have accompolished something.

I approve of this move.

I think I've said this in other threads. We have 40 guilds on my slightly above average population server that are 11/12 or better and 24 that are 1/13H or better. That is FAR more guilds than were "progression" raiding in WotLK. I feel it's reasonable to say that anyone that wanted to and was capable of raiding has had plenty of time to do so.

Next tier goes in. Now the casual players who can't commit to scheduled raiding can come in and have a shot. Or they can join up with the PuG raids I foresee cropping up on the weekends. And players will be able to gear up their alts now that it PuGs become a real possibility.

These 6 months that I've been raiding and pulling 359 and 372 raid loot, I haven't cared that people can run heroic instances and slowly accumulate Valor points and get 346 and some 359 gear. So why should I care when I'm pulling down 378 and 391 (?) Firelands gear and some other players get to clear 359 content easier? Why should I care one bit?

Comment by Interest

on Wed, 25 May 2011 09:23:28 -0500

These 6 months that I've been raiding and pulling 359 and 372 raid loot, I haven't cared that people can run heroic instances and slowly accumulate Valor points and get 346 and some 359 gear. So why should I care when I'm pulling down 378 and 391 (?) Firelands gear and some other players get to clear 359 content easier? Why should I care one bit?

Well people complained about heroics getting nerfed too.

Comment by xaratherus

on Wed, 25 May 2011 09:31:51 -0500

My guild has been focusing on BWD and BoT at this point. We're cleared up to Nefarion and to the Ascendant Council (respectively). We could progress more quickly if all of our raid group were a bit more dedicated to attempting to 'outgear' the content by grinding out heroics for purchasable T11 and equivalent gear, but oh well - we're having a good time.

Comment by Sweetscot

on Wed, 25 May 2011 10:58:24 -0500

I'm pretty boggled as to why anyone has a problem with normal t11 content being nerfed. I've read the arguments on the o-boards and it still doesn't compute for me. I probably won't be seeing them still anyway as there are not even people regularly pugging BH on the servers I'm playing on right now and I don't have any interest in finding a new guild since my main one all but died (there's 3 of us left and none of us particularly want to leave or try to rebuild) . There's been plenty of time for those with the requirements for regular raiding to complete them, I don't see how it can in any way be a bad thing for the content to be opened up to be easily pugged by NEW players and those who do not have the requirements for regular raiding.

what I would call requirements for regular raiding being 1) people to play with, be that guildies or just a large enough pool of puggers on your server 2) enough playtime in large enough blocks to complete a raid. 3) good enough internet and computer for minimum necessary performance and 4) The physical and mental capability for minimum necessary performance.

Comment by Esre

on Sat, 28 May 2011 01:03:16 -0500

I'm pretty boggled as to why anyone has a problem with normal t11 content being nerfed. I've read the arguments on the o-boards and it still doesn't compute for me...

I can't say why, but I believe that people have too much of their self esteem wrapped up in the loot, titles, and achievements that they earn in the game. These nerfs are aimed at the players that want to raid, but don't want to/can't spend the time that it takes to be a progression guild. I think that the 5% account hit that Bli$$ard took has changed their design philosophy. They went from 'Raiding is hard(suck it up)' to 'nerf it to the ground.' As for me, I had fun with it lasted. I miss my girl friend WotLK. Hell, I miss BC and Vanilla.

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